I agree with this article on older people

[Orangeblossom78]

Like many of us, i have been trying to emphasise to parents over 70 about staying in through this etc, and have been reading the several threads about others frustrated with there parents refusal to comply and get deliveries etc..

then I was reading this by Janice Turner in the Times today. It really made me think. I agree with what she is saying. We need to leave it up to them really.

How much of it comes down to our own need to feel we are 'keeping them safe' perhaps, so we feel Ok about that?

Here is the article:

The old have the right to decide what’s risky
Condemning the over-70s to long-term lockdown takes no account of an individual’s health, needs or desires

Janice Turner
Friday April 24 2020, 5.00pm, The Times
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Maybe it’s the sunshine, but something shifted this week. Social distancing in the supermarket queue has a bored, desultory air. People pass on pavements rather than leap into the road: evening strollers in the park are larkier, the mood less tense. Like a spring plant, the country longs to unfurl.

Yet the price of the majority returning to school, work, to pub reunions with friends, to regaining the million tiny pleasures we never knew we’d miss, will be the continued self-isolation of the old. Details are sketchy. The health secretary Matt Hancock has said it will apply to the over-70s for four months, others suggest the over-60s for 18. On Wednesday, health minister Lord Bethell refused to clarify if a grey lockdown will be advisory...

Link to full article (paywall).

[Post edited by MNHQ]

MilesJuppIsMyBitch also statistically less frontline NHS workers are dying than the general population. You are more likely to die if you are not a frontline worker.

@GabsAlot
Unbelievable
@KenDodd
If you had bothered to read my post you would know when i referred to many old people, I was talking about the policy of introducing Covid to nursing and care homes by the discharge from hospital to homes. This was a recipe for disaster

To those who say the next generation will carry the financial burden yes you are right, but not an excuse for elderly bashing. As another poster said, many of us are the generation that inherited the war debts. Global disasters do this! Germany had barely recovered financially from WW1 when the debts rolled in for WW2. Before you leap on the band wagon about the war, I am simply talking about ordinary people bearing the financial hardship of a another event

My dad is doing ok, lives in flats and is seeing neighbours in the garden while apparently ‘social distancing’

We haven’t seen him longer than a 5 minute chat to drop food off because thats my understanding of the rules, but obviously he’d love to see us and his grandchildren and my brother and his family

If this went on for another few weeks he’d still be ok and I would still insist on the rules

But

If this goes on for months Just for older people he’ll be dying his hair, dressing like a hipster and pretending he’s 50...and I’ll have to let him In the house cos he’ll be round here in a shot

And he always brings chocolate....soooooo

I am in better shape/health than some (actually many) of my younger colleagues...statement of fact. I know the disease affects older people in a different way, but that’s not what I was talking about.
(GP says my bio age is at least 15 years younger than my chronological age.)

One thing I've read about CV and why it's worse in older people is something to do with a particular enzyme or protein or something on the outside of cells. Apparently you get more and more of these as you get older and that's what the virus attaches to. Children and babies have very few, that's why they're largely unaffected (thank God!) If this theory is correct then all the exercise and healthy food in the world isn't going to change that, you've still going to have more of these receptors than your young unfit fat colleague, which, of course, isn't to say that if you start off healthy you've got a better chance.

As usual, it's ridiculous to claim that an entire generation is experiencing this in the same way.

It's also unhelpful to turn this is into an intergenerational dispute because many of the people who require 'shielding' are not old.

It's also unhelpful to turn this is into an intergenerational dispute because many of the people who require 'shielding' are not old

No absolutely

I’m not 100% sure but i think 50ish year old friend of dh is shielding and i think my 47 Year old brother is doing the same

I agree we can't keep our older relatives isolated indefinably, because if you really think that a vaccine will be found in the next 4 months then you are deluding yourself.

They have been trying to find a cure for the common cold/flu since the second world war. Yes we have found some vaccines in the last few years for some of the strains of flu but not a cure.

We have to learn to live with this virus and not hide from it.

Thanks borntobequiet..but it’s my husband.
Interestingly..his undiagnosed AF is the basis for his stroke which left him with little peripheral vision.
I’m now the only driver, so whether I want to go out or not, I drive hime somewhere safe like the beach or park so he’s not crossing roads, even if they are quieter than usual

It’s ACE2 receptors you are thinking about, Ken.

Do ACE2 receptors occur in some young people exceptionally or are the reasons for some young people getting serious symptoms to do with viral dose or other factors?